Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mass_Assassin 05-01-06, 10:27 PM	It is a well-known fact among fighters that the best way to get an edge on an opponent is to deprive him of his weapon. This can be done quite effectively with Power Attack and Improved Sunder. But what if your opponent's weapon is attached to his body? How would you deprive a clawing, raking troll of its stinging claws? Well, duh! Cleave it off! I'm looking for ideas of how to manage such an attack. It should function much the same as sundering, but may need a new feat and some modifications to balance it. Ideas, anyone?
Wharin 05-01-06, 10:41 PM	I dunno... Allowing people to dis-arm an opponent has some serious ramifications. Next thing you know, people are dis-arming anyone. BUT if you are going to allow it, I would think a feat would be in order. One that has both Improved Sunder AND improved disarm as pre-req's. Now again, even at that, I am not sure how much I like the idea of people hacking off hands, feet, or whatever limbs with the current rules set.
Silimaure 05-01-06, 10:48 PM	Any de-limbing mechanics ingame quickly become broken, I find.
Dalthbar 05-01-06, 11:47 PM	The "sharpness" weapon ability has been removed because it was too random and chaotic. There's just no way to accurately adjucate the effects of losing a limb in all cases. For instance, how many hit points does it take to lose a limb? Is it the same if the person is a level 1 mage vs a level 25 barbarian? What about a dragon? What's the effect on movement if you cut off someone's foot? What about a centaur's foot? What's the effect on a thri-kreen losing one arm? For consistency and game balance, it's just better to "conveniently ignore".
tarkin 05-02-06, 10:43 AM	First of all, don't use the word Cleave. It has a specifc in game meaning, killing a person, then getting a free attack on someone else due to the feat. Second of all, read the rules for Sunder. You have to do ALL the hitpoints of an object to sunder it. If a sword has 20 hitpoints, then to sunder the sword, you have to do all 20 hitpoints. So, if you faithfully apply the standard Sunder weapon rules to a monster with a horn, then if the monster has 75 hitpoints, to 'sunder' his horn, you must do 75 hitpoints of damage to the horn. So House Ruling to let people Sunder a natural weapon using the standard Sunder rules is pretty reasonable. There are even certain times when it might make sense to do it, i.e. you are facing a regenerating creature and you want to force it to spend a round reattaching a limb, because you know that you can't kill it with just subdual damage. If you want a Sharpness type effect, just base it on vorpal, but remove the word "head" and replace it with "limb of your choice".
Thubby 05-02-06, 06:52 PM	i think the that is a cool idea, id say youd HAVE TO have sunder just to try it, from their use sunder rules, as for teh "weapons" hp, i think it should be their total hp divided by number of limbs ( in humanoid case its 4) you should only be allowed to do this to natural weapons, which means no feet, just claws, horns, maybe wing attacks (but the creatures fly shouldnt be effected (no head sunder for u :D :D :D ) as for actual unarmed attacks, you should be able to attack to sever the limb, though it wouldnt do much good seeing as how you can use your legs, elbows, head, etc. p.s. the weapon should have to be slashing (u might crush a mans hand, but you wount get it off) i got the better part of my thaughts from how a hydra works with the heads p.s.s. any dmg to a limb should also deal damage to the creature attached